pmk

Finished. 50 years old and reborn. Titled, street tagged and ridden. Not restored since it seems no two were the same, not restomod except for LED bulbs, but built as a period correct time capsule, with period correct enduro options, NOS 1971 license plate, and kept as the originally built for enduros back in 1971 with the original RT2 360cc engine.

Rickman Yamahas, all but 1 were for the USA market. Yes, per the book, only 32 chassis were made. There is questions regarding if the first 11 were complete bikes or not. Everything thereafter was a kit per say. The buyer supplied the engine at a minimum. They could also supply wheels and forks, kind of depended upon what they wanted. It was not a special order, simply a Rickman purchased through Steens that the original owner completed. They were intended to be DT250 powered mx bikes. Mine was purpose built as a woods enduro racer in 1971 by the original owner. Bike has never been on a mx track. He purchased a RT2 360 crate engine which remains in it after a lot of work on it. Yes the actual serial number is in the thousands, but the method used by Rickman counted every frame built regardless of frame type or engine type. No plans to ride it off road. After enjoying modern bikes this would be misery to ride off road. Plan is a street tagged period correct cool enduro motorcycle. I have been corresponding with another owner that is almost done with his. We have worked together trying to locate the remaining survivors of the 32 made. We know of 6, I believe it is, so yes, somewhat rare and needed to be saved. FWIW, the original owner made changes, such as the rear axle having a sliding adjuster setup, and running a Yamaha rear wheel assembly. I opted to continue the Yamaha theme, and remain period correct, getting the proper Yamaha front wheel, and went with Yamaha rear shocks since the oem Gas Girlings are not rebuildable. Crazy as it sounds, even purchased a vintage license plate for it. Correct state, correct county, correct designator for a motorcycle, and correct year. Pretty certain the DMV will allow me to use the vintage tag as a legal current registered vehicle. So many small details to stay period correct. Hopefully it will be done soon, and yes, I will post a photo.

Rickman Yamaha with RT2 360cc installed when built new in 1971. Getting there but more to go until finished.

This forward and up hole does work well. From experience doing this mod, you should use a low output heat gun or hair drier to warm the protective sheath over the wires as you feed them through this hole, and as you route them when installing the stator. Heat will soften but not melt the sheath if done with low heat and allow the wire harness to easily follow its new route and placement. as the wires are routed up the frames right side down tube, be aware to keep them away from the exhaust heat, and still remain protected from abrasion. Once everything is assembled, a small amount of sealant will seal up where the wires pass thru the hole. Regarding the bottom hole from original, you can use an original grommet and seal the previous wire openings, or add a small fuel filter to avoid water entry and keep dirt out while letting it breathe.

Possibly, take a look at the Sudco companies info or Jets R Us. The items you are asking about, I would suspect are still available in tne aftermarket

It’s an AHRMA rule if the machine were to ever compete in one of those events. Luckily it will not be a part of that organization. Heard from someone that is involved with AHRMA trials, they apparently banned OKO and all carbs unless round slide. Kind of a dumb rule. So now you must spend more money, plus time and have a bike that likely runs worse to compete in an organization that is struggling to get entries. Sounds like a great way to promote vintage entries. Next they will insist on an old school spec tire, the same type tire for everyone.

Date codes are 1979, so they comply with available prior to 1980. Parts are 1980 Yamaha, which was available in 1979, keeping the bike legal as a pre 1980 machine with period correct items. Look close at the details required to do this. I had to “C” notch the frame. The entire pedal setup is redeveloped. I have a cable swaging machine to build the rear brake cable. Essentially, there was fabrication time altering the frame, machining time, and fabrication of detail parts including the cable. All this was after getting the much wider wheel into the swingarm while aligning the chainline. Many hours of sorting it out, designing, fabricating, etc., then having hope it would work. We considered many hubs / wheels before even starting. FWIW, both wheels were completely disassembled. Cleaned, polished, hubs painted and modified as needed. Suffice to say, getting the hub in the swingarm was no simple plug and play task. But seems to give a clean look and functions well.

I currently own and ride a 2005 SY250R that Mike imported and sold back then. It has had a few owners before me. In the gearbox, I have been running Shell Rotella T4 15w40, but have on the shelf and been considering switching to Maxima MTL 80wt but have not swapped yet. As for brake and clutch, I run Pentisone DOT4. The clutch slave I altered by removing the snap ring, as it tends to wear on the slave piston body. I also installed the jamb nut to the inside. Many people mention the arms are soft and fail, or have issues with the slave cylinders, on mine I simply ensured there was no binding or limited stroke to the lave cylinder. During a Ryan Young school, Ryan cautioned me about the brake pads. I will ask him again for details when the brakes need replacing, but he indicated something about the pads touching each other and not clamping the disc, even though pad material was left. Need more details to accurately explain. I have tried the oem white progressive spring, the oem yellow spring and both seemed to allow the rear end to squat more than I cared for. I have made adapters and installed an aftermarket spring the works well with minimal preload. Check the engine mount bolts for tightness. The choke on my bike has been a problematic bother. My latest efforts hopefully resolved the issue of the rubbed disc not sealing well. I made some other changes to improve the reliability of the bike, mainly the fabrication of an air filter guard to prevent water from coming down the airbox under the fender and filling the inside of the airbox. I also did away with the oem rear fender that so far for me was impossible to find at a reasonable price. Mike has been great to talk with and is knowledgeable on these machines. My most recent call to him discussed the ignition timing. I did dial back the timing on my SY to midway between the Yamaha spec and Scorpas setup. I found the Scorpa setup gave random flameouts, that felt like I either had to increase idle speed or take a small amount of timing out. The ADV website allows more photos so if you check there, I posted a topic about the SY and some changes I made. For me, the bike is far more capable than I am. Last event, I asked one of the local higher class riders to try it and give an opinion on the setup. His dad owned SY250s years ago. Within minutes, my SY was doing fine on stuff I would likely never attempt. I installed Dunlop tires.

When we built my buddies 72 MAR, many changes were made, including installing Yamaha wheels and brakes that are period correct. I have ridden his MAR and it will stop, plus has the feel and control pretty close to modern bike disc brake feel.

Just noticed your pen / screwdriver holder...Lycoming or Continental?

You will need to drain the coolant. Remove the kickstart lever. Remove the clutch cover. Remove the small bolts and clutch springs securing the clutch pressure plate. Remove the pressure plate. In the center of the clutch is a pusher, remove that. Next there is a steel ball, remove that, then withdraw the clutch pushrod. With the pushrod removed, the arm should lift out. Accomplish the reverse to reassemble. You may need a new gasket on reassembly. The link below is from a TYZ parts manual and visually explains what I just wrote, sort of. https://us.fowlersparts.co.uk/parts/4120715/ty250z-250-trials-4gg3-1994-999-a/clutch The link posted by Feetupfun is the service manual. That shows a similar sketch, but is handy as it is a workshop manual explaining the clutch disassembly.

Have not had my Scorpa engine apart, but typically you remove the clutch pressure plate, slide the pushrod in, then remove the actuator arm assembly.

Please share photos of how you get tne cable setup to work. I had considered similar and studied the TYZ setup, knowing it would plug and play. Downside was tne clearance from the Scorpas exhaust.

The actuator arm, there is a spring inside the slave cylinder that assures no freeplay between the slave piston and the adjuster pin / arm. Installing the jamb nut to the inside allows the adjuster to be into the slave slightly further, but do not overdo this adjustment as you may find the adjuster pin will scrape the snap ring. Worse still is fully extending the slave piston into the snap ring under hydraulic pressure. Realize too, the slave cylinder is secured via one bolt. This allows during assembly to obtain the best alignment of the actuator arm pin into the slave pistons cup. It all sounds complicated, but is not bad if you take your time getting a good bleed and best alignment when setting it up.